The present invention relates dental hygiene, and more particularly to devices for facilitating tooth cleaning, gum massaging, and the like.
Traditional toothbrushes are subject to a number of disadvantages. For example, they ordinarily cannot be kept in a sanitary condition following use because ordinary washing does not destroy common bacteria, and sterilizing solutions are dangerous to the user. Also, when it is desired to brush after only a short interval of time, the bristles of ordinary brushes are limp and wet, materially diminishing the effectiveness of the brush. Toothbrushes are also awkward to carry and store following use, being too long for concealment in many clothing pockets, being subject to contamination from the environment, and producing contamination of the environment from moisture and other accumulated matter. Moreover, it is impractical to discard conventional toothbrushes after only a single use, at least for the reason that they are expensive to purchase.
A number of alternatives to the traditional toothbrush have been proposed for avoiding these and other problems. A number of tooth cleaning devices of the prior art are configured for enclosing a portion of the user's finger for cleaning by movement of the finger within the user's mouth, such devices being retained on the finger by the user's thumb gripping a tail portion of the device against the finger. See, for example, U.S. patent No. 2,101,363 to De Rome. It is also known to provide a strand of dental floss with a tooth cleaning device that is received on a user's finger, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,999,260 to King.
These devices of the prior art suffer from a number of disadvantages which may account for their not being widely accepted in the marketplace. For example:
1. They are difficult to get fitted to the finger;
2. They are subject to falling off of the finger unless they are retained thereon by continuous thumb pressure;
3. They are expensive to produce, having complex structure or requiring difficult and intricate manufacturing steps; and
4. They are awkward to store and/or difficult to retrieve from a supply of the devices.
Thus there is a need for a dental appliance that is effective for cleaning teeth and massaging gums, that is easy to store and use, and is inexpensive to produce.